I don't like pottermore. I'd rather she just write a new series in the same vein, or barring that, released a new edition of the books putting all this miscellaneous garbage in context of the original story. Worst case scenario is she ruins the original books, but the best case scenario is she provides a richer, more coherent story as a legacy.

Pottermore is more or less JKR's writer's diarrhea.

 

I see this as the encyclopedia she promised but to a free access format. Yeah its aimed at kids a lot... but so are the books. Kind of annoying how long it is dragging out, but if she had just put together the encyclopedia it would have been years to see anything.

 

Grindelwald was bent on magical power superiority, and while he could have been one to instigate Muggle World Wars and have ties with muggle dictatorships, it is unlikely that he cared for difference between sorts of muggles, especially ones that have no definite physical difference, like Germans and German Jews. They all to be subservient, after all. So, no, Holocaust was idea of muggles. Even if a dark wizard is in need of the victims, he can just order his followers to obscure themselves with magic an pick some teens off the streets.

Chime: she puts together Potterverse there, that's important enough. To make someone else write the stories within the strict world rules is easy - look at the Star Wars or D&D novels. And in the meantime JKR would write something entirely new and thus more entertaining, instead of bothering with prequels and sequels to HP.

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On the subject of Pottermore sorting, could the fact that it is possible to land in a not quite related house even when giving technically truthful answers be counted as a proof of an idea that Sorting hat can be deceived? It had bugged be for some time.

 

Yesterday I learned that in Pottermore JRK said Professor McGonagall is related to William Topaz McGonagall, the world's worst poet.

That made me LOL.

 

Mordac, hadn't she stated somewhere that they're unrelated?
William T. McGonagall is hailed as the worst poet, but he isn't that bad. Classicistic and Neo-Classicistic poetry is much, much fouler, and almost unreadable to boot.

Funny imagination picture: Professor McGonagall writes poetry too, then hides it in the cradle.

 

The goats have been brought up three times in interviews, and each time it involved nods, winks, laughter, and "no comment."

And the entire canon is suffused with Greek mythology to the point that you can actually predict most of what ended up happening by using it, and in Greek mythology, Centaurs were really only known for one thing.

 

One thing... Unless you were Chiron. You know, the centaur who taught heroes and was a great oracle in his own right. Harry Potter centaurs draw heavily from Chiron, which means there's no reason for them to be rape happy.

 

Guys, despite centaurs being centaurs, they still have standards. In Greek myths any woman they steal is beautiful. Enough to be stolen even by gods, sometimes.
Umbridge in the books was ugly as hell. Uglier than thestral mares. So, either they are sick fucks with a thing for amphibians or rape it wasn't.

 

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"William McGonagall is celebrated as the worst poet in British history. There was something irresistible to me about his name, and the idea that such a brilliant woman might be a distant relative of the buffoonish McGonagall." JKR, in Pottermore

The idea that Professor McGonagall writes poetry too is indeed hilarious.

 

I think this might be a case of media source optimization;

'Today on Pindar's Playtime, the tale of Arachne. Playing the role of the girl turned into a spider will be Uma Thurman.'

 

Mordac, thanks.

wordhammer, funny thing that ancient sculptures and pottery of Arachne still are prettier than Uma Thurman. Greeks were good media optimizers: 'if woman isn't hot, she isn't worth mentioning'. And backwards, if necessary.

 

Chiron was a Greek metaphor. Their ideal of heroic manhood was someone who struggled and overcame great obstacles and trials, particularly related to themselves or their own natures. Centaurs were masculinity unchained. A wild fury. Chiron was that masculinity, but controlled. He was, metaphorically, the Greek male ideal for that specific reason.

Funnily enough, this is exactly what we see in Harry Potter. One Centaur rises to the ideal that was Chiron. The others are content to stoke themselves endlessly with anger, violence, and self-importance, which is exactly how the Greek Centaurs of myth behaved, albeit in a somewhat more restrained manner. The Centaurs of the forest could not be controlled. The attempts to manipulate them all failed. They even mocked Firenze for going to Hogwarts because they saw it as him being controlled.

They weren't all Chiron. There was only one Chiron in Harry Potter, and you know good and well who it was. And Umbrige wasn't left to his mercy.

 

I still doubt the very vane centaurs would bang a lowly, stupid bigoted toad woman. Unless they don't see it as humilliating to them, but merely as an act of dominance towards a weak outside invasor/enemy. That mean they would probably rape Harry and Hermione too if Grawp didn't save them.

Oh god, centaur m-preg Harry fics. Nooooooooooooo. The horror, the horror. Damn you ff.net.

 

And even if the rest of the centaurs weren't as kind as Firenze, they didn't exactly scream "rapist" to me either. They were still star-gazers, still well-spoken, and that they resented Firenze for deigning to serve at Hogwarts, with the idea that he is being used or perhaps taken advantage of or enslaved . . . it suggests a level of sophistication to me that would have prevented them from brutally raping some woman they consider to be beneath them.

The centaurs, even besides Firenze, seemed too . . . dignified for that. Even Bane.

 

Hannibal Lecter is also sophisticated but eats people.

 

Exotic delicacies are the epitome of sophistication. Rape is less so.

 

Hannibal Lecter is sophisticated? . . . okay.

Many would argue that cannibalism is the height of unsophistication. The scary thing about Lecter wasn't that such a sophisticated man could be so monstrous. It was that such a monster could seem so sophisticated. Cannibalism is one of the oldest measures in the West for savagery.

 

I wouldn't be so sure, afrojack. In fact, I'm having a friend for dinner today, I shall discuss the issue with him.

 

It's not even that. Pottermore has directly contradicted multiple things Rowling has said in the past in interviews. Either it's not her writing the content for it, or she's just doing whatever the hell she feels like with it, and not actually following her notes at all.

The entire section on Werewolves is pure horseshit. She addressed that when someone asked her about it years ago. "Werewolf cubs" is just rumor and misinformation, like Hagrid being big because he drank a bottle of skele-grow as a child. Werewolves don't breed true. Saying Hagrid was raising werewolf cubs under his bed is just slander that Riddle encouraged after he got Hagrid expelled.

Then Pottermore comes along years later and shits all over that.

I only consider Pottermore canon when it says things that don't contradict what's already been said. Especially when the information it offers is stupid and needlessly complex when compared to the alternatives.